Art handler’s protest

At Thursday night’s meeting of the Hudson River Park Trust, a pair of locked-out Sotheby’s art handlers stood up to ask the chair, Diana Taylor, some questions. Her reply revealed the inhumanity inherent in Sotheby’s refusal to negotiate.

Sotheby's held its best auction in three years last night, while just outside its heavily-guarded headquarters at 1334 York Avenue over a hundred students, union workers, and Occupy Wall Street protesters picketed the auction house’s lockout of 42 union art handlers. Chanting such teamster slogans such as “What's disgusting? Union busting!” and blowing whistles in front of a pair of inflatable mascots – one a rat, the other a fat cat squeezing a worker in its fist – the protests had seemingly little effect on the auction, which cleared an estimated $315.8 million and exceeded the high estimate of $270.8 million. The art handlers have been locked out by the auction company over a contract dispute that began July 29.

Rain did not deter this week’s Occupy Museums General Assembly, the second in what is an ongoing series of protests. Joined this week by the Art Handlers’ Union, Teamsters Local 814, a group of roughly 60 people collected on the steps of MoMA to protest a system they say has a funding structure and relationship to the market that “disempowers artists, and alienates art from the 99%”. From the museums, they traveled across town to join the picket lines at Sotheby’s just before the launch of their evening Prints sale.